Thursday, January 12, 2017
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
URSULA K. LE GUIN ~
The Salt
para Gabriela
The salt in the small bowl looks up at me
with all its little glittering eyes and says:
I am the dry sea.
Your blood tastes of me.
———————————
Ursula K. Le Guin
Late in the Day
poems 2010-2014
PM Press 2016
SPEECH IN ACCEPTANCE OF THE NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION MEDAL FOR DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS NOVEMBER 2014
To the givers of this beautiful reward, my thanks, from the heart. My family, my agents, my editors, know that my being here is their doing as well as my own, and that the beautiful reward is theirs as much as mine. And I rejoice in accepting it for, and sharing it with, all the writers who’ve been excluded from literature for so long – my fellow authors of fantasy and science fiction, writers of the imagination, who for 50 years have watched the beautiful rewards go to the so-called realists.Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality.Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial. I see my own publishers, in a silly panic of ignorance and greed, charging public libraries for an e-book six or seven times more than they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience, and writers threatened by corporate fatwa. And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books, accepting this – letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write.Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.I’ve had a long career as a writer, and a good one, in good company. Here at the end of it, I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom.
Ursula K. Le Guin
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
ALBERT WOODFOX ~
HOW ALBERT WOODFOX SURVIVED SOLITARY
As one of the Angola 3, he was in isolation longer than any other American. Then he came home to face his future.
go ~
The New Yorker magazine
Monday, January 9, 2017
LESSON ~
Black Bear
Who
carried the rain on his back
Who
we haven’t seen for a very long time
Who
knows this
Who
ran like me if I ran for my life
Who
crossed the wet dirt road without a track
Who
had me look over the same place twice
Who
mussed the deep pool river
Who
reminded me of nothing else
Who
crossed the road and hit a vertical bank
Who
vanished up that bank of trees and brush venetian
Who
isn’t easy to forget
Who
isn’t a riddle
Lesson
There
was a weasel
In
the yard for months
Then
one day there was
A
hawk in the yard
Only
his head moved
In
the tree
When the hawk was gone
The weasel was gone
Geese
They
squawk & bite
&
hit & scream &
Shit
in your path
&
destroy & you
Chase
them into the
Pond
in a rage
&
they float
She Talks
Standing in a
Chain saw repair
Shop waiting for a
New chain to be
Fitted onto her
Homelite, most of
Us standing close
To the wood stove,
Gloves icy, she
Said how today
Oodles of geese
Flew over her farm
____________________________
Bob Arnold
Once In Vermont
Gnomon Books
photograph by
Two~Hands
Sunday, January 8, 2017
HERE'S YOUR PATRIOT ~ (NAT HENTOFF)
[ b. June 10, 1925 Boston ~ 7 January 2017 ]
I worked six straight hours last night on the Birdhouse for the Inauguration. I take that day very seriously. And then when I was done at midnight I read one of my all time heroes, Nat Hentoff has died. I’ve been waiting; all my life reading and being educated by the man, who grew up with Cid (Corman) in Boston. Friends. Worked on the same radio. Amazing individuals, and of course the New York Times could barely rise to the occasion for a deserving obituary. They fawn over David Bowie, whereas Hentoff, a grand New Yorker, was a master in all political, social and artistic forums. Legion. This weakening of the grasp, everywhere, is what swung a Dump (Trump) into existence and play. We’ve lost the masterworks. Many, each week, all heading to the pearly gates. The last of the classical up-bringing are leaving us. We’ll be left with cyber learners. Quick heat bores.
[ BA ]
photograph ~ Clyde Haberman Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times
Saturday, January 7, 2017
A MAN CALLED OVE ~
"I can’t recall a film we watched twice in the same day,
and cried twice in the same day."
[ BA ]
DAVID REMNICK ~
By David Remnick
"If these declassified intelligence reports are true, how is it possible to count the 2016 Presidential election as unsullied?"
Friday, January 6, 2017
THE MOTH SNOWSTORM ~
The New York Review of Books, 2016
"In a famous preface to one of his short novels, Joseph Conrad
pointed out that the enterprise of the scientists or the intellectual
may have more immediate impact, but that of the artist is
more enduring because it goes far deeper; the statement of fact,
however powerful, does not take hold like the image does. I
believe that in defending the natural world, the time has come
to offer up the images.
What I mean is, it is time for a different, formal defense of
nature. We should offer up not just the notion of being sensible
and responsible about it, which is sustainable development, nor
the notion of its mammoth utilitarian and financial value, which
is ecosystem services, but a third way, something different entirely:
we should offer up what it means to our spirits; the love of it.
We should offer up its joy."
from THE MOTH SNOWSTORM
Thursday, January 5, 2017
BOB KAUFMAN ~
"Bob Kaufman Alley, in San Francisco’s neighborhood of North Beach, is tiny—"
read more:
BOB KAUFMAN
AND WHEN I DIE, I WON'T STAY DEAD
FIERY FURNACES ~
By way of Oak Park, Illinois
Eleanor Friedberger, singer
brother Matthew Friedberger, guitarist-organist-pianist
who also composes most of the songs
and rippling arrangements
( 2009 )
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
POETS WITH GUITARS ~
Biblioasis / Canada
2016
Often you can tell a wise one by their choices —
here's the evidence:
Gene Clark
Ronnie Lane
The Ramones
Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Townes Van Zandt
Little Richard
Alan Wilson
Willie P. Bennett
Gram Parsons
Hound Dog Taylor
Pau Siebel
Willis Alan Ramsey
John Hartford
Not bad, not bad at all
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
JOHN BERGER ~
J O H N B E R G E R
(London 1926-Antony, France 2017)
John Berger at home in Paris, 2005
photograph: Ed Alcock
for the Guardian
Monday, January 2, 2017
FARM HAND ~
Our triple hemlocks
photo by Bob Arnold
________________________________________________________
Farm Hand
for
Ted Enslin
FARM
HAND
climbed
a
tall ladder
with
hammer
pocket
of
nails
two
boards
sawn
with
a dull
bow
saw now
climbs
to a
high
corner
of
the barn
where
an old
window
lost
long
ago of
any
glass &
if
people
were
not
around
no
one
would
mind
this
pigeon
that
flies
in this
pigeon
that
flies
out
•
first
10 years
they
told you
second
10 years
they
asked you
•
today
scythed the swale
mowed
the lawn
lifted
the wide barn door
back
onto its track
raked
bark for kindling
added
topsoil turning compost
took
on the job to wash all
windows
in the big house
looked
for grapes under
frosty
palm-size leaves
showed
the owner how
to
hang a birdfeeder
•
was
asked
to
build a
footbridge
but
really
it
was having
to
lug by hand
down
the steep
pasture
& where
there
was to ford
a
spring runoff
two
heavy planks
settled
in
for
them
all
to
walk
over
•
very
good
money
is
what
pays you
&
when the
youngest
daughter
living
away
from
home
took
her
life
very
good
money
didn’t
help
•
heard
of
the
death
while
using a
rake
& having
to
hold it off
as
the father
approached
un-
expectedly
hugged
you
in sobs
•
you
finally
know
the folks
when
you’ve
twenty-years
grown
their
potatoes
•
everyone
is the same —
first
week of October
no
one talks about anything
but
firewood
•
where
a
scythe
is
used
always
think
of
them
walking
through
•
in
Spring
the
axe laid
down
on
barn
beam
finished
at
splitting
for
the
season is
picked
up right
there
in Fall
•
dug
the grave
when
their
favorite
cat
died
by
his favorite
apple
tree
•
flowers
they
once
taught
you
now
you remind
them
of their
names
•
the
large
red
barn
house-attached
has
never been
painted
since
you’ve
been here
•
many
years
now
have
passed
they
walk
out
to
greet
you
_________________
Bob Arnold
ONCE IN VERMONT
Gnomon
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